While the recruits do receive a lot of training more specialized training is also given to those already operational.Some of the courses are listed below and a better outline is given on the Specialist Rescue page.

Swiftwater Rescue Technician

This is a one week course carried out on the Liffey river which teaches firefighters about the dynamics of water, hazards, rope techniques and of course methods of rescue from bank operations to actually getting into the river/ water source in a safe manner and rescuing the casualty. Equipment now used in Dublin includes, drysuits, lifejackets, inflatable walkways, inflatable hose, throwable floating lines, ropework equipment, boat, boat carrier and launcher in HQ.

At this stage (Dec 2011) over 300 firefighters are qualified Swiftwater Rescue Technicians with over all firefighters trained in water awareness.

Rope Rescue

Currently under development personnel are training to rescue persons trapped in cranes, down cliffs on pylons etc.

Fire Behaviour, Compartment Fire Training

A large number of the brigade have already been through the course which teaches valuable skills in dealing with flashover, backdraught etc. All the pumps and hose branches in Dublin are now capable of producing the 

required droplet size to carry out gas-phase cooling techniques. (Check out FireTactics.com for more information)

The principle behind it all is to cool down only the gas using just enough water. Too much and a jet will hit the walls producing steam which punishes the firefighter and increases the pressure mixing the gases with more oxygen. This is part of all recruit courses and firefighter refresher courses.

Marine Emergency Response

Dublin Fire Brigade is a named resource of the Irish Coastguard for ship firefighting and can therefore be called upon to respond to any ship fire in Irish waters up to 200 miles off the west coast and to the middle of the Irish sea. We have exercises with the Coastguard, the Welsh Fire Service and Irish shipping on a regular basis.

Tunnel Firefighting

Over 200 firefighters were trained in Switzerland in tunnel firefighting. Since the opening of Dublin 4.5km long dual tunnel primarily for the port firefighters now have the training and equipment to deal with most of the incidents which might occur in such a busy large good vehicle tunnel. They have a dedicated tunnel response vehicle which is detailed is stationed in North Strand.

Incident Command System.

A national incident command system is currently being implemented with Dublin having tailored theirs sightly due to to it being the single biggest brigade in the south.

Its is based on dividing up an incident into sectors and tasks with clear lines of command to enable the job to be done more efficiently. No officer should have more than 5 lines of communication going to them to ensure they can concentrate on the task in hand. As the incident grows more command support personnel are assigned to assist in the lines of communication instead of everything going to one officer.